St. Paul’s Parish is 315 years old this year. With His grace and through the movement of the Holy Spirit, we hope to faithfully serve all His people for many more.
St. Paul’s Parish is one of the thirty Anglican parishes established in Maryland in 1692 after William and Mary’s ascension to the English throne. On January 30th of the following year, six members of the original Vestry met and agreed on the dimensions of a church to be built on land belonging to Mr. Michael Miller, one of their number, on the west side of Broad-noc Creek. Michael Miller’s grave is located just north of the northwest corner of the present church.
The first church was a 40 by 24-foot frame building erected by Daniel Norris on this site in 1695-1696. It was not particularly well built, however, and the Vestry decided by 1711 that the building was no longer worth repair. In August of that year, they contracted with James Harris, William Potts and James Smith to build a new and slightly larger church at a cost of 70,000 pounds of tobacco. As a result, St. Paul’s Church is the earliest religious structure in Kent County and, with the possible exception of Old Trinity in Dorchester County, the earliest surviving Anglican Church on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
When the contract had been fulfilled, however, the church was incomplete. The Vestry therefore executed a number of subsequent contracts over the next 4 years to glaze the windows, install 34 pews, lay herringbone brick floors, and construct and plaster a balcony. Portions of the older church survived until 1720, when the Vestry finally directed they be dismantled and the materials salvaged. An archaeological excavation in 1992 uncovered a stone foundation about 40 feet north of the present church that may be a part of the earlier building.
St. Paul’s is one of only four 18th Century churches on the Eastern Shore to have a semicircular apse. The church walls feature uniform Flemish bond brickwork with both plain and glazed headers, convex mortar joints, and rubbed brick semicircular arches above the windows and doors. The modillions in the cornice on the south side of the building are an exceedingly rare feature on the Eastern Shore, and date from the original construction. The work is considered extraordinarily fine for the period.
The church was remodeled for the first time in the 1740′s when an addition was built onto the north side to provide space for 23 new pews in which to accommodate the growing congregation. This addition was pulled down in 1824 when the congregation had dwindled and the church fell into disrepair. The patched brickwork is still visible on the north side of the building.
A second major remodeling occurred in 1841 when a wood floor was installed over the brick and a sacristy was built at the east end of the north wall.
Click on this thumbnail for a view of the church and one of the magnificent trees in the churchyard, circa 1915.
The church was renovated a third time in the 1940′s as a result of the generosity of Glenn L. Martin who had purchased what is now Chesapeake Farms. Mr. Martin restored the lake – dry for many years – and had electricity, a heating system and an electric organ installed at St. Paul’s. The original organ was replaced in June, 1999 with the state-of-the-art Allen organ now in the southwest corner of the Nave.
Visitors may be interested in some of the interior features of the present church. The church pews probably date from the 1840 restoration, and were stripped and refinished in the 1980′s. Miss Maria L. Gamble gave the chandelier in the nave in 1882 in memory of her two sisters. The stained glass window in the chancel was installed in 1864 at a cost of $250.00. The church bell was purchased in the same year for $10.00. St. Paul’s baptismal font is marble with a wooden cover, and was given by the congregation in 1863. The carpeting in the Nave is a modern addition and was last replaced during the summer of 1998 when the interior was repainted.
St. Paul’s added to the Parish House, dedicating the addition on March 14, 1999. This was the first new building added to our campus in 40 years. Its construction is in the tradition of growth and renewal which has characterized St. Paul’s for the past 315 years, and it has given our Parish and its Sunday School the space it has needed for some time. We hope that you will come and enjoy it with us.
For additional, more detailed information, please consult the following references:
McCall, Davy H., Editor, A Tricentennial History of St. Paul’s Church, Kent, Chestertown, Maryland, 1993.
Denroche, Christopher T., A Souvenir History of the Parish of St. Paul’s, 1893.